Solicitors action on court transfer rejected

THE HIGH Court has rejected a legal action by four solicitors aimed at having sittings of New Ross District Court transferred back to New Ross from a temporary courthouse located in a business park in Wexford town.

Since late August 2009, sittings of the New Ross District Court have been heard in a temporary courthouse in Ardcavan, Wexford town. They were previously held on a temporary basis in a GAA clubhouse in New Ross, pending completion of renovations of the original New Ross District Courthouse. This was closed in 2005 for renovations which, the High Court heard, have yet to commence.

The four applicants – John Flynn, Declan Joyce, Martin Lawlor and Paul Rogers, with practices in Robert Street, South Street, and Charles Street, New Ross – alleged the transfer of the New Ross cases to the temporary courthouse at Ardcavan has caused great inconvenience for witnesses, gardaí and practitioners.

Ardcavan is located 25 miles from New Ross and eight miles from the boundary of the New Ross District Court area (which encompasses an area in midwest Wexford and east Kilkenny).

In their judicial review proceedings, the solicitors alleged the presiding District Court justice, Judge Donnchadh Ó Buachalla, did not have power to have the business transferred outside the New Ross district to another district. They sought an order compelling the Courts Service to acquire a premises in the New Ross area or within a mile of its boundary.

The Courts Service denied the claims and argued the decision to move the court sittings to the Wexford location was appropriate, and made within jurisdiction.

In his judgment yesterday, Mr Justice John Hedigan said the temporary Ardcavan facility had all the facilities of a modern court, having been fitted out for that purpose. The judge ruled it must be within the power of a district judge to order that all business before the District Court be transferred where urgent need arises as, for instance, when a courthouse has become unsafe or unusable.

Section 27 of the Courts of Justice Act allowed the district judge to make such an order, he held.